Espy
by BlackBandit111
Summary: Sometimes a glimpse is all you need. One-liner shots.
1. 1-20

_Just a small collection of one liners. Hope you enjoy!_

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><p>1)<strong> Shot-<strong>

The scariest part is not that the gun can go off, Cabe thinks; the scariest part is that the tiny bullet it shoots can destroy so many lives.

**2) Loyal-**

Too loyal, always too loyal, and that's why Walter O'Brien sits alone in an empty garage where there is no longer anything for him.

**3) Fragments-**

It's amazing how life changes, he thinks, and tears plop onto cement as he tries desperately to glue back together the pieces of the cup he shattered.

**4) Long-**

The days are long and the cases are tough, but when they go home, the Rubix cubes are always waiting for them.

**5) Happy-**

Happy may not be it all the time or show it, but when she is her namesake, her eyes shine like the sun...and Toby is usually the cause.

**6) Beaten-**

Just because he's small doesn't mean he's an idiot, and the teachers should know better than to condescend him...but Walter tells him that it doesn't really matter, not all of it, and that he always has a place in their cyclone...and getting pushed by his peers doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore.

**7) Dance-**

Walter doesn't know how, not really, but he thinks that maybe if he could just keep dancing with Paige and only Paige, he'd find the time to learn how.

**8) Deviant-**

Sylvester was told his whole life that he was a freak, and maybe that was true, but then Walter came along and used kinder words, better words, and Sylvester figured maybe it was okay to be a little different.

**9) Hat-**

Toby Curtis doesn't go anywhere without his hat; his fiance` gave him that hat, and that might be a reason, but another may also be because Walter said he looked more official in it, and that may have sealed the deal for him...especially because chicks dig hats (but, he concedes, it's mostly Happy).

**10) Slinky-**

It's not exactly conventional, Toby thinks as he creeps around the corner of the mansion to get to the kitchens, but it'll work for now.

**11) Drive-**

Sylvester may not like planes, but it isn't until he sees the look on Walter's face when they mention return by wheels he really understands why Walter was so adamant... Walter doesn't like _cars._

**12) Clarity-**

Paige might not understand her son as much as she'd like, or really know her co-workers like she feels she should, but Walter translates Ralph for her, and as long as she can have a relationship with him she doesn't really care.

**13) Dads-**

Maybe it's because Walter never had one or because Cabe lost a kid, but Toby can see it, the way they look at each other...but he never had a real dad of his own, not really, so he's not sure what that look feels like; sometimes he thinks he sees it gleaming in Walter's eyes when he's gazing at Ralph, but Toby feels like he shouldn't call it if he hasn't felt it.

**14) Mask-**

Walter doesn't need to wear a mask for Halloween to be a completely different person; he just needs to take his off.

**15) Imitate-**

Paige knew if from the moment she saw it; the _duckling mentality,_ she liked to call it, and it was that mirroring that children do with parents, the _monkey-see-monkey-do_ idea...So when Walter tells her he's Agent Cabe Gallo for Halloween, she's not altogether surprised and realizes that she probably could have guessed who he was being after all.

**16) Count-**

Cabe knows that maybe the kid is a little whiny and doesn't really understand emotions, but there's one thing that Cabe can always count on him doing because that's who he is; he righteous and a good man and just _good_, and Cabe knows Walter will do the right thing in any situation (although giving a ten million dollar portrait back to a family then taking the fall for it qualifies as borderline, in Cabe's opinion).

**17) EQ-**

It's not that he can't feel, she thinks; it's that he's afraid of getting hurt...And as she sits down to write her report, she knows she can't possibly let them go; not when they have each other...She has never been kind, but she is not cruel, and she refuses to split up a family that has finally found solace.

**18) Perfect-**

And as Walter relaxes a little and lets himself sway with the beat, he allows himself a moment to just look at her...and knows why he's going to fall so hard.

**19) Alone-**

They're never really lost, wherever they go; some could say that's because they're a team and they're always with each other, but it's mostly because they all have tracking devices installed on each other's phones.

**20) TV-**

To be fair, they don't really like movies, but Paige had brought Ralph over absolutely ecstatic with the discovery of Mission Impossible...And they had popcorn, so who were the other Scorpions to say no?

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><p><em>Okay! There's 1-20. There will probably be more at some point. which was your favorite? Why? Did you like longershorter ones? Please leave me a comment on your thoughts and thanks for reading!_


	2. 21-40

_Hey everybody! Thanks so much for the feedback, follows and favorites, I'm so glad you all like my "mirco-stories" as so well put Ambrosia Rush! I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much and thanks for reading!_

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><p>21)<strong> Brogue-<strong>

It's still there, Walter's accent; he slips into it when he's passionate about something, or angry or upset, and there's always an underlying of Irish tinging his words. (Happy doesn't say anything though because either Walter doesn't notice, or doesn't want to remember, and she knows what that feels like.)

**22) Cracked-**

It was with certain righteous resignation that Cabe approached most of the Scorpion team, their faces hard (and a muscle jumps in Toby's jaw); "What happened?" Cabe asks (but considering Sylvester looked deeply shaken and there was a bloody unconscious man lying a little ways away maybe shouldn't have to)...And surprisingly it was Paige who answered darkly but simply, "he threatened Sylvester."

**23) Stuck-**

He's trapped, trapped in his head and he doesn't know how to get out and he's _burning burning burning_ and he doesn't know what to do and hands are holding him down and prying his jaws open but Walter knows they're bad and he babbles a threat, but they don't go away and his heartbeat's in his ears and then there's the voice of an angel: "Walter...you're safe now."

**24) Flag-**

Walter may be a citizen of America, Paige can't help but think as she watches his eyes crinkle in the corners when he hears a young Irish girl pipe something to her friend in an accent, but he's an Irish boy at heart.

**25) Flinch-**

Cabe knows that the Scorpions (no matter how much they deny it) are all afraid of something, but Cabe admits he wasn't expecting Walter to cringe away from the wooden ruler.

**26) Snap-**

It wasn't until it happened to her tool that she realized _Toby_ had never broken or bent like that. Not once.

**27) Full-**

Toby has always had a full house, but now it's not just at a table.

**28) Z-**

And if all of them fell asleep on top of each other after the Mission Impossible movie had ended and the popcorn had been eaten, and Walter had his head cushioned on Paige's shoulder with his back against the couch, and she didn't complain, no one said anything about it later.

**29) Open-**

Even as he sits there, a small little smile curving his lips, his eyes glinting in what she's come to see as impishness (because he's not fully mischievous, not really, and it isn't _smug _so much as it seems like a small child that has an amusing secret) she knows already that he's going to lie because that's what he always does for his family, and so before she even asks her questions she knows what she's going to say about their team.

**30) Agent-**

It hurt, when Walter introduced him as "Agent Gallo"; in a different life he had been merely _Cabe_, maybe called a friend, maybe considered something more companionable; so when Walter, with an ease that surprised the older man slipped back into "Cabe", he knew that for all his shortcomings, Walter forgave him.

**31) Glass-**

Despite what he believed about his masks and emotions, to the Scorpions, Walter was mostly see-through.

**32) Silence-**

Paige learns why no one likes it when they are all completely quiet standing around a hospital bed, quivering fingers reaching up to brush at her knuckles as familiar but clouded eyes wander to her face, a smile as radiant as the sun lighting his lips as he murmurs in awe, "Paige?"

**33) Crash-**

Walter didn't mean to do it, jump down the rabbit-hole; he'd been lost before he realized he couldn't be found again.

**34) Before-**

He could remember prior to Scorpion Walter's knack for puzzles and codes, learned that a bored Walter was a nasty one, an angry Walter was a righteous one, and learned that a gratified Walter shined as bright as a star.

**35) Tell-**

Happy doesn't really need to say anything, not really, because the whole team already knows that when she leaves them for her tools it's her way of needing space, when she comes back it's her way of seeking comfort, and when she attacks people it's _protect protect protect_ thrumming in her veins, not aggression.

**36) Cards-**

Toby swears that they'll never be a problem again.

**37) Kids-**

They hate pictures, but Paige insisted, and it turns out to be framed and put on the wall of the garage; Cabe smiles fondly as he looks at it, at them all dressed up in their costumes and Ralph in his brain, and sniffs and wipes his eyes because he can't cry (he won't let himself) and glances around at the boxes in the empty garage and mourns the loss of four more (his first one had been the death of him too, and although _their _coffins aren't that small, they leave as big as a mark.)

**38) Honest-**

Because "I'm fine" doesn't cut it anymore.

**39) Air-**

Sometimes Sylvester feels so stifled by everything it gets harder to breathe already contaminated air.

**40) Group-**

They love each other, and at the end of the day, that's all that really matters.

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><p><em>Alright-y! (Also sorry about "kids", uhm) Which was your favorite, any constructive criticism you might offer me, any praise, any whatever, please leave me a comment on your thoughts!<em>


	3. 41-51

_Hey guys! I know this is only ten of them but I hope they're good enough for y'all, and I hope all your holidays were warm and safe and bright!_

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><p><strong>41) Jittery<strong>

"You'll be fine, kid," Cabe says to him, but Walter is already so nervous that he's shifting from foot to foot, inconsolable; Cabe thinks he's being silly, because Paige did agree, after all, and he knows that he's right when he sees all the apprehension melt off of Walter's face and give way to a beaming smile when Paige begins walking down the aisle.

**42) Numbers**

Paige is good with normal, Toby is good with personalities, Happy is good with tools, Walter is good with Scorpion, Ralph is good at making them human, and Sylvester is good with numbers.

**43) Punch**

He doesn't admit it, but he can see it, the pride shining in Cabe's eyes as he says in a voice that is clearly meant to ring out, and he thinks that maybe he shouldn't be so spiteful of knowing Cabe before…after all, his right hook would be much, much worse today if he hadn't.

**44) Help**

"I can't do this," he admits to Cabe, who only claps him on the shoulder and says to the bundle in Walter's arms, "you know what kiddo? Your daddy's going to spoil you rotten, he loves you so much." Then he turns to Walter and says in a voice too sincere to be fake, "she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen come from you, Walter."

**45) Away**

His parents are gone, he knows, but when he looks at Meghan, who turns and smiles back at him and munches quietly one what might be her last meal, he doesn't feel so far from home.

**46) Change**

There's a reason Ralph hates change; he hates the uncertainty it brings, the feeling of hopelessness, how you can't stop it. But he doesn't hate the change that happens between his mom and Walter, because that's a change that'll turn out good, he knows, because Walter explained probabilities to him, and the probability this will work out is significantly larger than if it won't.

**47) Together**

He can see it, the way Toby looks at his Happy, with that twinkle in his eye and that small smile on his face, and he knows his girl was being looked after long before he came into the picture.

**48) Basics**

Sometimes, Paige considers herself teaching them the givens in life, like one might teach a child. Be nice. Don't insult. Keep certain thoughts to yourself. Don't fight. Intellects to yourself. But most of all? Love each other, and yourselves, because _you are worth it._

**49) Shocked**

Walter's a little twitchy.

**50) Together**

They all seem to know that Sly will be uncomfortable, and get themselves back to him in their own various ways.

**51) Days**

And at the end of all their days, when they lie down and try to close their eyes to unsee whatever horrors they faced, they know that at least they have each other.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading and please leave me a comment on your thoughts!<em>


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